This Week In Your Wallet: How To Negotiate Lower Prices
Taylor Swift — singer, songwriter, actress and the ultimate negotiator? Perhaps.
If you were too busy planning your annual Fourth of July BBQ (happy belated btw!) and missed the news, Swift made headlines after posting an open letter to Apple explaining why she wouldn’t be allowing access to her latest album on Apple Music (the company’s new streaming service to compete with the likes of Spotify). The bad blood? She didn’t like the company’s decision not to pay artists during the service’s free trial period. And in threatening to withhold her hot new “1989” album, the new reigning Queen of Pop also gave a crash course in Negotiation 101. Apple Music will compensate artists during its free trial now.
What did she do right, and how can you channel T-Swift in your next negotiation? There are a few things to do — five to be exact — and I cover them all on Today.com.
To start, you need to have a specific goal. “I want a raise,” is not a goal. Maybe you’ve heard the saying: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Well, that’s a wish. Getting specific turns it into a goal and also makes it easier for you to develop a plan to get there. So, edit it to read something like: “I want a 3% raise by the end of next quarter.” Once you know your endgame, you then have to ask the right questions. And there are two questions key to any negotiation, says Lee E. Miller, co-author of A Woman’s Guide To Successful Negotiating. One, what will motivate the other party to want to do what I want them to do? And two, what are the things that are going to keep them from doing what I really want them to do? Continue reading on Today.com.
Negotiate Lower Medical Bills
One great place to consider applying those negotiating strategies? Your next expensive medical bill. As MONEY reports, your medical bills are absolutely negotiable, and just one phone call can save you an arm and a leg. For instance, when was the last time you called and asked for a discount? It’ll depend on the hospital network, of course, but much like auto insurance, there are discounts that need to be self-reported. This goes for charity care programs (healthcare for free or reduced prices) too. Call and ask if your hospital or doctor has a program, check your eligibility and see if you qualify for certain discounts alongside your insurance.
You should also be poring over bills just as you do with your credit card statements, looking for errors which are more common than you might think. Medical Recovery Services, a national organization that helps patients identify and correct errors in their bills, says 80% of the hospital bills they see come with expensive errors. A few common ones (see a full list here) include upcoding, unbundling and duplicate billing. Come again? Upcoding is when you’re charged for a different and more expensive procedure/service than what you actually received (e.g. you’re billed for a name-brand medication when you received the generic). Unbundling is when you pay separately for services that should have been packaged together. And duplicate billing — natch — happens when you’re billed more than once for the same procedure or service. If and when you find any, then it’s time to give the billing department a call, or even better, a visit.
Delayed Gratification
Americans are pretty impatient when it comes to Social Security. Despite the not-so-little-known fact that the longer you delay, the bigger your monthly payments will be, many Americans are locking in reduced benefits by not waiting until their full retirement age (66-67) to collect, reports USA TODAY. In fact, some 40% of people begin taking Social Security benefits at age 62 — and fewer than 2% hold out until 70. Why? Some say they need the money sooner rather than later, some don’t think they’ll live that long and others are convinced that Social Security won’t be around for much longer either.
Unfortunately, the bigger risk than dying early (and leaving some money behind) is outliving your assets. As Philip Moeller, Laurence Kotlikoff and Paul Solman advise in their book, Get What’s Yours, you’re better off focusing less on the break-even date, and more on the broke date — the day you can no longer afford your cost of living. The major takeaway from the article: Sure, you can start taking your benefits at 62, but your monthly payments will be 25% to 30% smaller than if you wait until full retirement age. Then, once you reach your retirement age, your benefits will rise by another 8% a year until they hit the maximum at age 70.
Hot Dog, It’s July!
I hope you had a fun holiday weekend celebrating the good ol’ red, white and blue. Now, let’s talk about how you can save some green this month. July, as Daily Finance explains, is also the point when retailers start to set their sights on fall. Meaning: Summer specials get underway. Use this month to shop for the following:
- Furniture and Mattresses. New furniture models will hit showroom floors come August, which means stores are looking to make room for them now.
- Computers. Get a jumpstart on back-to-school shopping (and save while you’re at it) by getting your computer this month. The new models came out last month, which means you’ll see discounts on the older models this month. And by older, we’re talking last year’s goods.
- Jewelry. It’s off-season for jewelers. With the December and February holidays well over six months away, jewelers are looking for business by dropping prices and running sales.
- Tools and Paint. Take advantage of post-Father’s-Day deals on tool sets, large tools and accessories via Lowe’s and Home Depot. Now’s the time to buy paint, too, because who wants to paint in the heat of summer? (No one.) That’s why it’s worth stocking up now so that you can paint for a lot less later.
And on a final (frugal) note: Use this month to stock up on fresh summer produce that you can freeze for later! You’ll save money come winter.
Have a great week,
Jean
